Joan Collins

I really feel now like a native New Yorker. And I’m very happy here.

I’m older than my sister so I started writing first. I started writing at school. I was always top of my class in composition, essays, English Lit and all of that.

I do it because I love acting, I love working, and whether it’s radio, television, films, theater, I don’t care as long as I can get out there and do it.

I have a lot of male friends.

Basically, though, I believe in eating well, not eating too much but eating a variety of foods.

The secret of having a personal life is not answering too many questions about it.

I think health is another exceedingly important thing.

Loneliness is the universal problem of rich people.

And we have not found any generational gap at all. If he wants to go a football game, he goes. If I want to go to a fashion show, I go. We don’t have to do everything together. But we like doing most things together.

The easiest way to convince my kids that they don’t really need something is to get it for them.

If life throws you a lemon – make lemonade.

I think it has something to do with being British. We don’t take ourselves as seriously as some other countries do. I think a lot of people take themselves far too seriously; I find that a very tedious attitude.

And I kissed a lot of frogs as well, but no, I kissed a lot of frogs and now I’ve found my prince.

I think dieting is bad for you.

Yes, I love playing cartoony characters. Been known for that.

I think, Larry, one of the things is I’m a very active person.

I have the absolute utmost respect for soap opera actors now. They work harder than any actor I know in any other medium. And they don’t get very much approbation for it.

Dynasty was the opportunity to take charge of my career rather than waiting around like a library book waiting to be loaned out.

I don’t believe in dieting.

I received an OBE from the Queen, which probably doesn’t mean anything in America but is quite nice in England – the Order of the British Empire for services to drama.

And I used to write novels and little stories and compositions and I – but I put them away because I started acting when I was 17. So there wasn’t much time.

Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I’ll show you somebody who has never achieved much.

I’m extremely happy in my life. I consider myself to be very blessed.

I mean, even my dressing room at the studio has candles and cushions and cashmere rugs and things.

I’ve never yet met a man who could look after me. I don’t need a husband. What I need is a wife.

And I think of that again as I’ve written in several of my beauty books, a lot of health comes from the proper eating habits, which are something that – you know, I come from a generation that wasn’t – didn’t have a lot of food.

I consider you as old as you look and feel. And in that case I feel – I feel I’m about 39, like Jack Benny.

But I have had to give up certain things in my life. One is shopping. Two is lunch with the girls. Three is cocktail parties, and four is studying my lines.

The problem with beauty is that it’s like being born rich and getting poorer.

And then I wrote my first autobiography when I – well, it was 23 years ago. And since then I’ve written about one book every two years.

I don’t buy into you’re on the slag heap when you’re 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or whatever.

Well I’ve written four beauty books as well.

Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.